15% of Firms Say Retention and Recruitment Is Their Priority
What can transportation operations do to address the shortage? There’s no clear answer. We found that 15% of US freight firms put staff retention and recruitment as their priority for this quarter, making this challenge the third most mentioned priority after vehicle upkeep at 23% and “managing financial pressure” with 21%.
Those firms might just be caught between a rock and a hard place, as boosting retention and recruitment will likely require increasing financial pressure rather than decreasing it. Providing better training and development opportunities is the most popular strategy among survey respondents who claimed recruitment and retention was their priority, followed by “enhanc[ing] recruitment efforts.”
Here’s the full list, in order of which percentage of firms said it would be their top strategy:
- Provide better training and development opportunities: 8%
- Enhance recruitment efforts: 7%
- Improve work-life balance for drivers: 6%
- Increase driver compensation and benefits: 6%
- Improve company culture: 6%
Raising salaries to lure in a fresh, younger crowd of cross-country truckers may be the most clear way to meet the current demand. According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers was $57,440 as of May 2024.
